Adam Bolonsky Likes Bluefish

Time for a throwdown! Who says bluefish are oily? Not me! Gut and bleed blues in the boat and you’ve got the best-tasting fillets ever. Check out the red and pink dots and lateral line in this one-day old catch ready for the grill

I don’t know about the best tasting fillets ever. I can name about 5 fish fillets off the top of my head I’d rather eat.

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Nice catch, Adam! Quick question, I understand “gut” a fish, but what do you mean by “bleed” a fish? Can you be gruesomely graphic in your response because I’m getting a lot of variations on what this entails and it impacts how the fish tastes. Thanks!

HI Sandy,
By bleed I mean cut the fish across the throat, all the way down to the spine. This will sever the main arteries, Pull the cut open and the arteries will pump all the blood out from the fish.

Blood in the fish is bad. It oxidizes quickly, leading to a bad taste in the flesh. Most diners who dislike blues have eaten blues that have gone bad. They spoil quickly. Bleeding prevents that. It’s easy to recognize fillets from a fish that has been bled. The dots and lateral line in the fillets are pink or red. Dots and lines that are brown indicate oxidized blood. Yuck!

One man’s bait is another man’s dinner. I thought whiting was bait too. Top on my list is a well bled fresh bluefish grilled or placed onto a pan of thin sliced potatoes that have been cooked in olive oil and garlic and the fillet gets a twenty minute ride in the oven.

Right now the bait I am eating is pollock caught at the same time as Atlantic Mackerel. Both get the crispy panko route.

When all is said and done I would rather eat your beautiful bluefish fillets than striped bass or cod. Might have to try whiting …

Man, if you were there in the day, and saw how much whiting was packed, H & G, you would wonder who ate it all. I mean millions of pounds. NYC, Philly, Chicago were all big buyers. But Joey C. knows this. His family was one of the biggest handlers of Whiting in the port.
H & G = Head & Gut (de-Headed and de-Gutted), dropped the blood and digestive enzymes and bacteria, as Adam described.

Heya Bob:
In the day. Would that have been the 70’s? That’s when I was a wharf rat at Rocky Neck, assigned to pump out dock floats that banged into each other late afternoon every day, when the fleet of Glouceser wooden draggers steamed in past the paint factory and threw wakes big enough to drown a dog.

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As long as supplies last if any GMG folks want a bumper sticker but can't drop down the dock, just send a self addressed and stamped envelope longer then 7 and a half inches and I'll drop one in the mail for you.

Send the self addressed and stamped envelope to the dock at 95 East Main St Gloucester Ma 01930 care of Joey (put my name in big letters to make sure it gets to me)

Free GMG Gloucester Sticker

As long as supplies last if any GMG folks want a bumper sticker but can't drop down the dock, just send a self addressed and stamped envelope longer then 7 and a half inches and I'll drop one in the mail for you.

Send the self addressed and stamped envelope to the dock at 95 East Main St Gloucester Ma 01930 care of Joey (put my name in big letters to make sure it gets to me)